


And The Heart of a Hero

by SnorkleShit



Series: The Librarians Shipathon 2016 [4]
Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Drabble, Jake POV, Librariansshipathon, M/M, MI6, Oneshot, Open ended, Pre-Slash, Talking About the Past, The Librarians Shipathon 2016, post season two finale, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 14:21:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7687831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnorkleShit/pseuds/SnorkleShit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desire defines a man better than action.</p><p> Or maybe it was the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And The Heart of a Hero

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StickleMonster7](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StickleMonster7/gifts).



> This was requested by phantabulawsome.tumblr.com! I hope you like it, and I can always go farther with this storyline if you do, I left it open at the end for a reason.

Cassandra is a mess, and she is not intending to be anything else anytime soon. Jake respects that. He does his best to help her as much as he can, tries to make things easier for her. He balances between giving her the space she needs, and stepping in to be a shoulder to cry on. Being there for the others, that gives him a sense of peace in dealing with his own loss. If he has a sense of purpose, a sense of accomplishment, it makes him feel a little more steady. He needs to be steady, because the others aren’t. No matter what Jones may be galavanting as, he is _not_ fine. And it wouldn’t even take a genius to see that much. Jenkins is content to leave him to it, spending his own time either helping Jake with his work or helping Jake comfort Cassandra. Jake figures that working on getting the Library back in order will offer them all a sense of purpose, and order in themselves. It seems to be working so far - Cassandra, after the first two weeks, actually starts getting out of her reading chair and doing things again. She miserable and depressed while she does it, but at least she’s active. 

Jones, on the other hand, doesn’t offer much assistance. He claims it’s not his job to clean up messes, and Jake and Ezekiel find themselves bickering over it. But Jake can’t bring himself to be truly angry. If anything, his usual frustration with Jones’ antics has morphed into...disappointment. He had always known the thief was hiding a not-so-hardened heart under his carefree criminal exterior. Which was why it drove Jake crazy, to watch Ezekiel always trying so hard to appear as if he wasn’t trying at all. He had always just longed to know more than this one dimensional image. A very annoying one dimensional image. 

But now...Jake knew more than he’d ever expected to know. Curiosity killed the cat. At first, Jake’s reaction to the events of the video loop was to assume the pressure and the ungodly amount of time had caused Ezekiel to undergo some great change, some great shift of character, a grand development that occurred over time, driven on by trauma and necessity. And as frustrating as it had been to see a glimpse of who he could be and then revert back to that one dimensional image, Jake had admitted, at least now he knew Ezekiel’s potential.

But then they'd been thrown into fake lives, into their own secret desires. And when Flynn had come to take them back to reality, they had all woken up. And when they all woke up, they had looked at each other, and they had all realized how much someone’s dream life says about them. But they’d all been too busy dealing with Prospero to bother to talk about it. 

But now that Prospero was gone, and had left tragic loss in his wake, Jake had time to think over it. Cassandra’s made sense, Eve’s was obvious, his was a little typical. But Ezekiel’s - oh boy. Jake spent a lot of time thinking about him. An FBI Agent? Fighting crime? 

If Ezekiel secretly wanted to be a hero, why would he get so offended when Jake had told him he was becoming a good guy. And what was up with his quote while facing Prospero?

Jake knew. It didn't take long for him to realize exactly why, for him to have a revelation about the young thief. And when he did, he had some conflicted feelings about his own past behavior.

Curiosity killed the cat, so they said. A chance he could bear to take.

And he did indeed take it, one night, at the bar after work. The three of them usually got a drink after work, but Cassandra had been dead set on staying late tonight. So it was just Jake and Ezekiel. 

The first half of their beers were consumed in brooding, tired silence. And then Jake risked reaching for the forbidden fruit.

“So, an FBI agent, huh?” He asked, as if it were the easiest conversation in the world. It wasn’t. Ezekiel stiffened visibly, and set his drink down slowly. 

“Drop it, Stone.” Ezekiel said, in an uncharacteristically serious manner. Jake’s eyebrows shot up. He’d touched a nerve. He’d thought as much. Maybe if he pressed in the right way, the tension would unravel.

“C’mon, Jones. It’s nothing to be ashamed of! I really don’t get you. You’re proud of doing shitty stuff like stealing art, but ashamed of doing cool stuff like being a secret agent. What’s up with that?” Jake asked, turning to full face Ezekiel, to show how committed he was to an answer.

Ezekiel stared evenly down at the rim of his bottle. “MI6 wasn’t _cool_.” He stated, lowly.

“Why not? If it wasn’t cool, why’d you join in the first place?” Jake pressed. Ezekiel visibly swallowed.

“I thought it would be. But it wasn’t.” He answered, shrugging it off.

“So you left? Just because it wasn’t cool enough?” Jake asked, a hint of judgement in his voice. This was the last straw for Ezekiel. He whirled on Jake, eyes blazing, and pressed right up into his face.

“Do _not_ talk about my life as if you know what you’re fucking talking about.” Ezekiel practically snarled. Jake blinked at him, frozen in shock at the outburst. After a moment of letting the threat sink in, Ezekiel pulled away. The thief stood, quickly finishing his beer and slapping down some cash. Jake watched all this, still in shock, but when Ezekiel turned to leave he snapped out of it. He reached out and grabbed Ezekiel’s forearm, causing the other man to stop and turn to glare down at him. Jake swallowed under his gaze.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an ass. I just...want to know more about you.” Jake confessed, in a tense desperation. He couldn’t fuck this up, not this.

Ezekiel’s face slacked, and he blinked. “What? Why?” He asked, somehow bewildered. Jake frowned up at him, confused as to how that was confusing.

“Because I _care_ about you.” He said, as if it was obvious. Ezekiel just stared at him for a long moment, still standing frozen, with Jake’s hand on his arm.

“But-you-” Ezekiel started to stammer. Jake sighed, letting go of Ezekiel’s arm.

“Ezekiel, if I didn’t care so damn much, I wouldn’t get some damn mad.” He stated matter of factly. 

Ezekiel sat down, slowly, and ordered another beer. They both faced the bar, and were silent for a while.

“It was a little kid’s dream.” Ezekiel finally says, softly, bitterly. Jake’s gaze gravitates towards him.

“What was?”

“Take your pick. Every kid wanted to be like the badasses on TV when they were kids. I was just too stupid to grow out of it, and that’s...what I thought it was going to be like.” Ezekiel muttered. 

“You thought MI6 was going to be like a TV show?” Jake asked, surprised. Ezekiel’s face twisted up, and his shoulders curled in protectively. 

“Yeah, pretty fucking stupid, I know. I just wanted to be the smart guy, the tough guy, the hero. But the real world hit me pretty fast, and my career there didn’t last long.” Ezekiel huffed bitterly.

“I don’t think it’s stupid. I think it’s sweet.” Jake said. Ezekiel turned to narrow his eyes at him.

“What are you going on about? Are you having a laugh?” Ezekiel demanded. Jake just shook his head at the other man’s ignorance. 

“It’s like the devil said. You want to save the world. And apparently, you have since you were a little kid. It just took a little longer.” Jake told him, shrugging.

“Yeah, well, I guess I let my childhood self down pretty bad.” Ezekiel said. 

“Okay, now you’ve got to be the fucking with me. What are you talking about? You’re a hero.” Jake said, elbowing Ezekiel. Ezekiel looked at him, and then broke out into bitter laughter.

“Yeah, sure.”

“Ezekiel, you-” Jake started to protest, but Ezekiel was already gone, weaving through the crowd of the bar, his stool left spinning and empty. Jake let his shoulders slump, and stared down into the amber liquid of his glass. As the night ticked on, he contemplated the things Ezekiel wanted and the things he wanted people to _think_ he wanted. Desire defines a man better than action. Or maybe it was the other way around.


End file.
